Zach Meyer is a Product Designer from Portland, Oregon, with a BFA in Product Design from the University of Oregon and 7 years of experience in medical and sport products. He spent 4 years working with a prosthetic innovation startup, where he designed custom prosthetic limbs using cutting-edge fabrication methods and materials. Currently, he is a Design Engineer at Smith Optics, where he focuses on creating high-performance helmets, goggles, and eyewear for skiing, cycling, and outdoor sports. His passion lies in blending technology, design, and user-centric solutions to enhance life in motion.  

Mica Russo is a lead color designer for a major brand in the sport and outdoor industry. While completing her Product Design BFA and Spanish BA, she led the UO’s DFA chapter and interned for OMSI’s exhibit design team. For the last 9 years, Mica has colored lifestyle and performance footwear worn on 100-mile-long trail races, hospital night-shifts, Ted Lasso episodes, and her neighbor’s daily walks. She uses a creative process grounded in immersion, collaboration and play. Lately, she’s found the best palette inspiration when running on her local trails.

Liz Zarro, Product Design BFA ‘15, currently designs performance bags for Nike, Jordan, and ACG brands. She began her professional career in 2013 with an internship at Will Leather Goods. She went on to perform product design work as an Independent Designer in categories from accessories to pet gear to tech and more. For eight years, she designed performance outdoor dog products for Bend-based Ruffwear, leading its color, print, and DTC strategy. Liz’s approach is human-centered. She believes product design should uplift and inspire.

Yaelle S. Amir is a curator, editor and educator based in Portland, OR. She has spent the better part of the last two decades as an art worker—facilitating artists’ projects through exhibition-making, curatorial work, research, organizing, project management, grant writing and grant-making. Her curatorial and writing projects examine the ways in which the exhibition space can serve as a tool in community building, with a primary focus on artists whose practices supplement the initiatives of existing social movements. You can learn more at yaelleamir.com.

Sara Krajewski has been with the Portland Art Museum since August 2015. Sara activates the contemporary art program through exhibitions, commissions, acquisitions, performances and publications. She also fosters collaborations that bring together artists, curators, educators, and the public to ask questions around access, equity, and new institutional models. Recent curatorial projects include: Hito Steyerl: This is the Future; Opacity of Performance: Takahiro Yamamoto; Hank Willis Thomas: All Things Being Equal…; We.Construct.Marvels.Between.Monuments.; Josh Kline: Freedom; and Placing the Golden Spike: Landscapes of the Anthropocene. From 2012 – 2015, Sara was the Director of INOVA (Institute of Visual Arts) at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee where she curated an array of interdisciplinary exhibitions and performances. Sara was also curator at the Henry Art Gallery, Seattle from 2004 – 2012, where she focused on solo artist projects and group exhibitions exploring photography’s impact on visual culture.

Tyler Stoll is an interdisciplinary artist whose work spans sculpture, performance, video, social practice, and writing. In his recent work, Stoll appropriates the image of Danny Zuko, the iconic leather-clad protagonist from the musical Grease, to test the durability of normative masculinities, while offering flaccidity and dissolution as soggier, yet emancipatory, alternatives.

Formerly a ceramicist and a jeweler, Stoll holds a BA and BMus from Oberlin College and completed a two-year fellowship at Penland School of Craft before earning his MFA in Art from the University of Oregon. He was recently awarded the Ford Family Foundation Fellowship Residency at the Ucross Foundation, and his participatory protest titled the future is flaccid was included in the 2024 Oregon Contemporary Artists’ Biennial. Stoll is based in Portland, OR, where he is a member of Well Well Projects and works as an art educator and exhibition preparatory.

Julian Watts is an artist and woodworker who combines traditional woodcarving techniques with a contemporary sculptural approach, creating work that explores the intersections between sculpture, functionality, nature, and the human body. Born in San Francisco, Watts earned a BFA in sculpture from the University of Oregon and apprenticed under several San Francisco-based furniture makers before establishing his own practice. He currently lives and works in rural Oregon, drawing on the lush, forested environment of the region for both material and inspiration. His work has been shown internationally including recent solo exhibitions at SarahMyerscough Gallery in London and Curators Cube in Tokyo, as well as in numerous art fairs including Design Miami, Fog Fair, PAD London, and Salon Art & Design New York. His work has been featured in The Wall Street Journal, The Financial Times, Architectural Digest, The New Yorker, and American Craft Magazine, among other publications. He has taught woodcarving at numerous institutions around the country including Anderson Ranch, Haystack Mountain School of Crafts, and California College of the Arts as the Wornick Distinguished Visiting Professor of Wood Arts.

Michael Cooper is a seasoned Production Designer based out of Portland, Oregon. He has shaped the visual narrative of feature films and television productions spanning across major platforms like Netflix, HBO Max, and Amazon Prime.  He specializes in crafting immersive set designs, graphics, props, lighting, and costumes, and works closely with directors and writers to elevate visual storytelling.  When he’s home, he likes to sneak out to the disc golf course.

GAidan Grealish is an interdisciplinary artist, interface designer, and art director living and working in Portland, OR. As a UI/UX designer, she creates playful, prosocial interfaces for games and other digital experiences. Aidan has designed and built immersive e-learning games for numerous Fortune 500 clients, contributed art to several indie games, and was a cofounder and creative director of cohost.org, an independent, worker-owned, user-supported social media website. Her work has been featured in The Verge, TechCrunch, and CNN, and she recently spoke at XOXO, an experimental festival for independent artists who live and work online. While at UO, she was a longtime tutor for the ARTD 250 series and took Game Art with Rick Silva until they wouldn't let her do it again. She is currently a freelance game UI designer and in her spare time enjoys analog craft projects like painting and sewing.

Since graduating from UO, Kyle’s worked professionally as a 3D generalist and independent filmmaker. His most recent film, Grizzly Business, won Best of Oregon at the Portland Festival of Cinema, Animation, and Technology and has shown at festivals around the world. When not navigating the Great Plains of the 3D Viewport, Kyle dabbles in other mediums such as stop-motion animation, digital illustration, and a failed stint at piano lessons.